


lay your hands on the left behind

by badboy_fangirl



Series: The Broken Ones Series [3]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:30:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2059347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the final installment in The Broken Ones Trilogy. First part: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1408522/chapters/2955214">Empty Handed</a>; second part: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1661354/chapters/3524960">Holding On.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/americanoutlaw/media/MaeMobleyfeelings_zpsdaf5f9af.gif.html)
> 
> The title for this story and the opening quote are lifted from the song "Broken Ones" by Jacquie Lee.

_we've all been broken once, so let's love the broken ones_

"See ya tomorrow, Dixon," Maggie calls as Daryl clocks out. He tosses her a _fuck you_ look because she does this every day, thinking it's the most hilarious joke for some reason. "Be good to my sister," she finishes up, like always.

He sends her a _fuck you_ finger gesture as well, and the grin that splits her face almost makes his irritation fade.

_Almost._

He knows he's just sensitive; there's a part of him (that will probably always remain) that never quite accepts that all this's real. That he lives in a city that's Walker-free where he has a respectable job making sure it stays that way, and that he goes home every day to this beautiful young girl who, somehow, _chose_ him, and thinks he's the greatest fucking thing that ever happened to her.

Who says shit like, "I'm _not_ sayin' I'm glad the Turn happened, but I am glad that this--" she points back and forth between their bodies to indicate _them_ "--happened. And I realize it probably never woulda happened without the Turn, so it's kinda confusing, right? I mean, don't you think it's okay to find beauty in a broken world, in whatever way you can, and just be grateful for it, without havin' to justify it?"

He just nodded, because the reason she had even been saying it was because some bitch she worked with had tried to make her feel bad for being happy. When that same bitch had never even been out with Walkers, or been raped, or seen their daddy get his head chopped off.

Beth'd had to pin him to the bed to keep him from going down to her work and giving this 'Lydia' person a piece of his mind. All he knew was he hated her, whoever she was, because who could look at Beth's smile and ever do anything to try to make it stop? Was she fucking blind?

"Daryl," Beth said cajolingly, sitting atop him. "She doesn't matter. I just needed to vent. And you think I'm right, doncha?"

"'Course you're right," he muttered, resting his hands on her hips, hooking his thumbs in the beltloops of her jeans. "And," he added for good measure. "That woman's a bitch."

Beth's face reddened a bit when he said that, and then she got this gleam in her eye, the one he knew very well. She raised up on her knees to undo his pants and he grew hard in her hand. It took some contortionist moves to get her out of her jeans and panties because she refused to climb all the way off him. By the time he was running his fingers teasingly through the soft curls between her legs, they were both giggling like a couple of kids.

(In those first few months with Beth, Daryl'd had more sex than ever before in his life. He'd never been that into getting tail, much to Merle's disappointment, and he remembered too many times when his older brother harassed him about not even liking girls.) 

As she sank down on him, she made a humming sound in her throat, but she was still giggling just a bit, and he could feel the vibrations of it throughout her body into his. He reached up and slowly pushed her shirt upwards until she helped by pulling it off over her head. Then he tugged one bra strap down until a breast peeped out at him. Thumbing her nipple gently, she stopped giggling, and the hum went into a deep moan that had her head falling back on her shoulders.

She moved up and down on him, slowly, for a while before she brought her eyes back to his to say, "You feel so, so, _so_ good, _god._ " She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and Daryl felt himself swell bigger, at either her words, or her actions, he wasn't real sure. "I don't know how I lived without it," she whimpered.

(Yeah, the issue had never been that Daryl didn't like girls.) 

He understands, now.

He hadn't liked sex just for the sake of sex. With Beth it was a way to communicate that didn't involve words (or at least words he had to think too much about -- sometimes things just came out of his mouth, surprising them both, like when he started babbling about how the reason he felt so good to her was because he wasn't cut, and some people didn't even know it, but being uncut gave a woman a lot more to feel, and it wasn't half bad for the fella either, to which Beth had smiled on a downward movement, her hands braced against his chest. "I know, Daryl," she whispered, and he wondered how she knew that, being as there were lots of other things she hadn't known until he showed/told her, but she followed that with a hip swivel that nearly ended him and the words, _Michonne told me,_ and then he _was_ coming, not because of Michonne's name being tossed out there, but because Beth suddenly got there herself, and nothing triggered his orgasm faster than her clenching around him in her own ecstasy), and Daryl _fucking loved that._

Because words often failed him, especially when it came to Beth.

There was all this stuff in his head, had been for months and months, and even though part of him really wants to tell her everything, showing her is much easier. Pleasing her, making her gasp and moan and say his name? Yeah, he just really fucking loves it.

(Merle'd probably still think it was pussy behavior, but Daryl silenced that voice in his head long ago.)

Sometimes he lays in bed, in the early morning hours, when he's supposed to get up and go to work before her, and just watches her sleeping. He gets off on that in a strange way, too. The satisfaction of her serenity, is, in his bones, the only thing that really matters.

As time passes, and his contentment stretches out, other thoughts start to worm their way in. 

Ones that involve more than being naked with Beth and lying comfortably in a bed with her forever. Because while that is everything that he can imagine ever wanting, there is this niggling reminder at the back of his mind about the rest of the world.

The Turn is the best thing that ever happened _to him_ , but he knows that's not the case for most everyone else. 

And Maggie's clichéd parting words on the days she works with him is just one reminder of it.

Another happens to be waiting for him in the locker room at work on a day when Maggie's shift doesn't coincide with Daryl's.

"Hey, Abraham," he says, shocked to see the man who had never quite become his friend through Terminus and traveling to Washington and all that. They'd been allies, for sure, but by then Daryl had had his wall up, good and solid, keeping any and all extra people out. He had lost Beth and he wouldn't lose anyone else he loved, but at the time Abraham, Rosita, and (especially) Eugene, woulda been the people he threw under the bus.

Luckily, it had never come to that, but still. Daryl is in a different place now, but the memories that come in strong at the sight of Abraham's red hair and crazy mustache are still somewhat painful.

"Whatcha doin' here?" Daryl asks as Abraham moves forward to shake his hand.

"Lookin' for you," he says. "You gotta few?"

Daryl puts his stuff in his locker and nods his head. "Yeah, I'm just headed home, so no rush."

"Where you living?" Abraham asks.

Daryl shuts the locker door. "I'm in a house over on Colorado Avenue. Why?"

"Just curious as to where they put you."

Daryl half-smiles. " _They_ didn't put me anywhere. I'm living there with my girl, and she was living there before we got here. I just moved in with her."

Abraham smiles, too. "The little blonde? Maggie's sister, right?"

"Right," Daryl says. 

When he adds nothing more, Abraham clears his throat. "I'm just gonna get right to the point here, Dixon. You're a good man, a good soldier. I watched you when we were out there, and you're the kinda man I'da recruited back in the day. And I'm kinda recruitin' you now, but it's top secret, so you can't say anything to anyone, until everything's official. I wanted to come and talk to you, personally, give you some time to think on it."

"Think on what?" Daryl asks.

"They're getting ready to announce that they've created a cure. Eugene's theory worked, and they've been running trials on folks, and it's working. So we're gonna have to take it out, to the people who are still outside our walls. And I want you on my team when we go."

Daryl leans back against the bank of lockers, mostly out of shock. All that information, spewed so quickly at him, all but takes his legs out from under him. The biggest reason they'd started for Washington had been because of Eugene's claims that he could cure the virus, but Daryl never bought it for one second. And since they'd been in the city walls, he hadn't thought anything of it, though from time to time Rick would mention something about Abraham or Eugene.

"I know it's a lot to ask, but we need people who know what they're doing out there, and I can't ask everyone from our original group to come. So I chose you and Sasha. Anybody you bring with you is up to you, but I'm not asking anyone else from that group. Y'all can do the recruitin' beyond yourselves."

Daryl just shakes his head, not sure what to say. 

"I mean, if you decide to come along," Abraham clarifies. He moves toward Daryl, but doesn't crowd him. With an earnest expression on his face, he adds, "There are people needin' savin', Dixon. You strike me as the type to get it done."

Daryl watches as he turns away. He walks to the door of the locker room, glancing over his shoulder just as he pulls it open. "I'll respect whatever you decide, but I'd feel a lot better with you out there with me."

In the silence that follows, Daryl's decision is agonizingly easy.

 

 

He fucks Beth in the pantry of all places.

There is no other word for it. He sees her in there, and his need to possess her takes a savage turn. Or at least, in comparison with the way he's ever laid hands on her before, it feels savage.

(He feels like a savage, using her like that when he knows he's gonna leave her.)

"That was... _wow_ ," Beth says breathlessly, her head leaning on a loaf of bread on the shelf in front of her.

His hands are still palming her breasts, the shuddering of her chest causing them to tremble under his touch. "Sorry," he whispers, not really sure what he's apologizing for.

A choked laugh escapes her, and her hands cover his over her shirt. She squeezes his hands, and stretches back a little. "I'm not," she says brightly. "But help me stand up, here. I don't want to end up face-planting in the bag of flour down there. I can't handle the idea of explaining to Carol or Michonne how I broke my nose in the _pantry_."

Daryl can't stop his own laughter at the scandalized way she says the word.

He flicks his thumbs caressingly over her nipples once more before sliding his hands down to her hips, keeping her steady as she shuffles forward. He hadn't gotten so far as removing any of their clothes completely, and her jeans and panties are around her ankles. She bends down to pull them up slightly, and because of his position on the step ladder, her ass is practically in his face. 

Not that he minds, obviously. He holds on to her and leans forward, pressing his lips into one of the dimples at the small of her back where her shirt has ridden up. Resting his forehead against her, he rubs his nose over the smooth soft skin there. It's a bit of an awkward hug, but Beth doesn't seem to mind. She pats a hand over one of his, but says nothing, letting the moment ease along at its own pace. He finally lets her go, but only when her words fully register about their housemates knowing about what they've done in this community spot.

"Yeah, I guess we oughta get outta here, huh?" he asks.

Beth straightens up, pulling her pants with her. She throws a sly smile over her shoulder and whispers naughtily, "What they don't know can't hurt them!"

Daryl remembers teaching her to use his crossbow, and can't help but feel like she shot him straight through without even meaning to.

 

 

Daryl is certain of two things: one, he has to go with Abraham; and two, nothing hurts worse than Beth's righteous anger. Of all the emotions he's felt for her or watched her go through separate from him, having her mad at him, and knowing he deserves it, are the worst places he's ever been.

He doesn't know what to do about it, so he stays away. But he doesn't seek solace from Rick or Glenn, or anyone. What could they say? Nothing he hasn't already gone through in his own mind, that's for damn sure. No one can talk him out of it, because he knows it's the right thing. He just never realized how much doing the right thing could hurt a person. In some ways it was almost as bad as doing the wrong thing, and he had plenty of experience with that.

The thing is, see, that Beth makes it fucking impossible to do the wrong thing. Not because she couldn't just say _Daryl, I don't want you to go_ ; he would obey her command without much hesitation. But she'll never say that, and he knows it. 

What Beth means in Daryl's life is that he has accepted that he's a good person and that he does the right thing. It didn't start because of her, it started because of him; he might even trace it back to the time Carol told him he was every bit as good as Rick or Shane. But because of Beth, because of the gift she's been in his life, he can't--not _ever_ \--just go on with his life with her and never look back. His second chance is all wrapped up in her, and the least he can do is offer second chances to every other person he can physically reach.

He knows how valuable it is and the idea of not going with Abraham is the same as not looking for Sophia-- _not an option_.

When he finally does go home, it's the middle of the night. The house is dark, and it strikes him as strange that he's just walking quietly through it to his and Beth's bedroom. He's not drunk; he hasn't done anything to avoid what's about to happen. Well, he avoided it for a few hours, but still. He intends to face the music. 

He'll do what little he can to mend her broken heart. Like make all the promises he needs to make and give her some sort of gesture of how much he loves her, because he can't go back on his word to Abraham.

Making Beth come has been his favorite pastime since, you know, the first time he did it, but there is a huge tragedy in the undertaking this night. He can feel in every stroke of his fingers that it's not right, that it's not communicating what he's come to rely on so heavily over the last several months. Even so, he doesn't stop until she's quivering around him, and with her nails in the tender skin of his neck, he welcomes his own discomfort, both there and the ache elsewhere that he doesn't intend to satisfy.

But when she tells him she's going with him, it's as effective as being doused with ice cold water, and _that_ has _never_ happened to Daryl with Beth.

He moves away from her, mostly because the desire to hold on to her so tightly he can never lose her seems to pulse under his skin the way his blood had moments ago. Then she flicks the bedside lamp on and turns slightly so she can see him. He can feel her watching him, just waiting, but they both know there's nothing to say. He would never boss her, and she sure as hell would never be bossed, so.

 _Stalemate_ , he thinks it's called.

Then he thinks of Maggie. _Be good to my sister._ He lets out a breath and says the only thing that pops into his head. “Maggie’ll fuckin’ murder me for takin’ you with.”

She doesn't even take a whole beat to respond. “Maggie’ll get over it.”

“Like your gettin’ over it?” he scoffs. His fingers twitch with wanting to grab at her, so he jams his entire arm under the pillow beneath his head to keep himself under control.

A glare pierces his skin as he lets his eyes meet hers. “You think this is retaliation?” she asks.

He can feel her vibrating in a totally new way now, without his fingers inside her. “The fuck, Beth? I hurt you, so you’ll hurt me, right? I can at least call a spade a spade.”

It scares the shit out of him when she leaps off their bed. They've been talking in hushed tones since it's the middle of the fucking night, but that flies out the window when Beth yells, “I’m not tryin’ to hurt you, you stupid sonofabitch! I’m trying to make sure you survive! And if I’m out there with you, I know you’ll be extra careful, but I’ll also have your back. We’ve had this fight before, but let me remind you, I survived, too! It’s not just dumb luck that I made it here! I was the one who had no survival skills, but somehow made it out of the prison with you. I was the one who believed there was good in a world gone to hell, and _I_ was the one who got stolen by some hillbilly lowlifes that raped me! And I’m your _woman_ , Daryl Dixon. What do you expect me to do, just sit at home and hope you make it back? When I know that nobody will protect you better than me, because nobody loves you more than I do! Lord have mercy, because I might just fucking shoot you myself before you can go out there and get eaten by Walkers!”

She sorta gapes, open mouthed, like a fish out of water as she ends her tirade. Shoving a hand against her chest, she visibly calms herself, and for the first time in more than a week, Daryl has the insane urge to smile. She's a beauty, this girl of his, and it's not just what his eyes can see; it's all this gumption inside her, everything about her that proves again and again that he 'married up' for lack of a better term. 

She reads him all wrong for once in her life as she points a finger threateningly at him and accuses, “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

Well, maybe he does want to laugh, but it's not to make fun of her; it's on account of the pure joy she brings to his life, even at this, one of their worst moments.

He can't remember what he did before Beth Greene, and he doesn't want to. This is how life should be, so it's how it's always been. He's rewriting history, but it's his own private deviation, so it's okay.

Michonne beats on the wall and reminds them, “It’s four o’clock in the morning, y’all,” so he allows a chuckle to erupt his throat, softly, shortly.

He makes her swear to never leave his side, once they're out on the road, and that's all there is to it. Deal made, spit shake (not really, but metaphorically), and they're off.

 

 

It isn't until they actually roll out of the gates that panic nearly undoes him. They've had their moments leading up to this one, things that made it obvious that they're worried about not coming back from this run. (Like leaving a note for Glenn and Maggie, like a coupla pussies.) At the same time, Daryl had never had more cause to come back safely; at the prison there had always been the knowledge that people were depending on him, and that had been strong motivation. But the idea of seeing Beth walking down the aisle in a soft white dress with flowers in her hair and Maggie following behind her? Somehow that mental image was more powerful than any other thing he'd ever had in his head.

He'll get them both back so they can have that moment, the one he never even knew he wanted until he watched Glenn's face as the Greene sisters walked towards them both.

He and Beth climb up in the back of one trucks in their caravan, riding for the first stretch. They will all take walking shifts, and the caravan will never be going too fast that people can't get to higher ground relatively quickly (trucks, tanks, and like vehicles made a long procession out of the city). Heading toward Richmond, Virginia to see what and who were left along the way, this mission was only supposed to last one month, just to see how things went. 

Thirty days, that's all. They could do it, Daryl hoped. 

(Daryl might've even prayed, you know, since that's what Beth was doing anyway. She knelt next to their bed, and what else was he gonna do? Usually he just waited silently for her, but that morning, he had joined with her for the first time. She'd made no remark about it, but took his hand in hers as she said what was on her mind. It had made him feel better, at least for about an hour.)

By old measuring tactics, it would take two hours by car to travel from D.C. to Richmond, but because they would be scouring the areas near and far of the main highways, as well as the greater city area and the suburban neighborhoods, they had a goal of reaching the destination within two weeks, so as to give them the same amount of time to return, retracing their steps in a different direction to cover as much ground as possible.

It was all just a crapshoot; no one knew what would happen or how soon they might turn back. But as far as plans went, that's what they had.

Beth's eyes meet his, and the resolve he sees there makes him buck up slightly. She might be all that stands between him and certain death, but he trusts her more than anyone else in their company. 

(He also loves her more than anyone else in their company.)

 

 

Four days out, they take a small detour, on foot, through a wooded area that comes out on a smallish, dilapidated neighborhood. He and Beth are in front, with Abraham, Rosita and three other guys flanking them. 

They haven't seen a living person in all that time, but the Dead are fairly thin out here, too, which in a weird way makes Daryl more hopeful. Muscle memory is super strong, though, because he can still kill Walkers quickly and easily. 

Beth had taken up her weapons without so much as a backward glance either.

As they come up on the broadside of a fenced yard where the fence is still intact, they're all very quiet, listening for the familiar guttural sound that comes from a Herd. In the silence, all Daryl can pick up is the wind whistling through the trees. 

He sees something out of the corner of his eye and he turns on instinct, just in time to see the backside of some human, at a distance, running away. Before he can acknowledge that he's seen anything so he can gesture them forward, Beth breaks formation.

She calls, "Wait!" and takes off running. Daryl throws a hand out, automatically trying to grab her and keep her close, but he's too late. She sprints away, never once looking back. As she disappears into the treeline on the other side of the fenced yard, Daryl doesn't look back at Abraham, he simply follows after her. They had sworn to stay together, and he has no idea why she just left him in the dust. 

He doesn't shout her name (or the swear words that bubble at his lips) because if there are Walkers, he doesn't want to do anything to attract them. As he re-enters the forest, his eyes seek out the signs of where her feet landed as she ran through here just moments before. It's a trail he can follow easily, and when he sees the sun bouncing off the yellow of her hair, the relief that flows through him gives way to anger ridiculously fast.

"What. The. Actual. _Fuck_ , Beth!" he whispers loudly as he comes up on her left side.

Her head jerks slightly in his direction at his approach, but she doesn't turn to face him. As he peers over her shoulder, he sees what she sees, in a little copse of trees.

A boy, with dark greasy hair falling across his eyes sits huddled protectively over a baby. It's hard to tell how old either of them are, at least for Daryl who never paid much attention to kids before Carl and Little Asskicker came into his life, but using those kids as his only references, he knows that the boy must be a few years younger than Carl is now, and that the baby is definitely smaller than Judith, and unable to walk quite yet. 

Beth puts her hands out, and slowly lowers her weapons to the forest floor. "We're not here to hurt you," she says gently. Daryl can't see her face, but he imagines she's smiling for some reason. "You don't gotta be afraid," she says, lowering herself to a squatting position.

He waits for the kid to respond, expects to see some kind of expression, even through all the hair, that shows that the kid understands and accepts Beth's sweetness.

Instead, he flips his hair outta his face and all but snarls like a rabid dog. "Fuck you, bitch," he growls.

Then he brandishes a knife of his own, and the blade gleams menacingly as the sun hits it. It's at least nine inches long. He scoops the baby up into his arms and it starts to wail frantically; he takes a lunging run at Beth, and Daryl reacts quickly. He rounds Beth on the right, taking the kid by surprise. He grabs at the arm holding the weapon and knocks it out of his grasp, then he shoves the baby over so that he can plant his knee in the middle of the kid's scrawny chest. Once Daryl's got him flat on his back on the ground, the baby howls even louder.

That's when Beth yells, "Daryl! Walkers!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/americanoutlaw/media/castlefail_zps98a6eb57.gif.html)   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The opening quote for this chapter is lifted from the song "Tell Me a Story" by Phillip Phillips.

_Hope is just a ray of what everyone should see  
Alone is the street where you found me_

The next few minutes are a blur for Beth. Everyone moves quickly, knives thrusting and roundhouse kicks landing with precision. That's when she realizes that not only had Daryl followed her, but so had Rosita, Abraham, Sam, Lou, and Marcus.

The herd isn't that big, maybe twenty or so Walkers and between the seven of them, they easily take them down. 

But still.

In the end, she's covered in blood. It's the grime of life out here that she had forgotten about so quickly. It's funny how residual Post Traumatic Stress dreams, at least for Beth Greene, had had the gore edited out.

Of course, she hasn't had a Walker dream in months; since she started sleeping with Daryl, they had gone away. The dreams she has most often nowadays were about the things they did when they were awake. In many ways, her best inspirations came from dreams where she and Daryl were making love.

Out here, there's none of that.

When she sees the little boy scurrying away from the fence, she isn't able to communicate to Daryl what it is that makes her start running. But she had, on instinct, just taken off, because it wasn't just a little boy; she had also seen a baby in his arms, and she can't let them disappear into the forest so easily. Not when help, and safety, and everything they could possibly need are so close. 

In that moment all she can think about is getting those kids back to D.C., _telling_ those kids that there is such a place. 

Now, she looks around at the Walker carnage and realizes they got away. In the melée, Daryl had left the boy in his prone position, and the sound of the crying baby had receded into the grunts and groans of the Dead and Living as they fought. The knife however that the boy had wielded at Beth lay in the grass, where it landed when Daryl knocked it from his hand. 

She walks over and picks it up as her eyes scan the ground for signs of which way he ran. The grass is all torn up in various places from the feet of everyone who had run through and were now panting heavily in the aftermath of a Walker defeat.

Daryl is at her side instantly, his fingers wrapping around her elbow as though she might bolt at any moment. All he says, though, is, "Didn't see where they went?"

She shakes her head and looks up at him. "He didn't take the knife with him, either," she says, holding it up.

Daryl reaches for it, and she lets it go. He slides it into a sheath on his belt where his other two knives already hang.

"Next time," Abraham booms, "we give and take orders, got it? We don't just run off like a bunch of chickens."

Beth turns to glare at the big, loud man. "It was a coupla kids; I wasn't thinkin' of the group, I was just thinkin' about them."

He marches across the glen to her, looming over her to say vehemently, "Exactly. You gotta think about _the group_ , Greene."

Beth lifts her chin defiantly. "I gotta think about those _kids_. Isn't this a _rescue_ mission?"

Abraham moves aggressively forward, crowding her, but Beth holds her ground. That's when Daryl says, "Hey," in a low voice. He's still standing right beside her, but he makes no move to get between them.

Abraham's gaze flicks to Daryl briefly, but returns to Beth almost immediately.

"Abraham." Rosita appears beside him and Beth sees her fingers curl around the inside of his elbow, tugging him back slightly. 

His nostrils flare, and for half a second Beth is reminded of the horses they'd had on the farm all through her growing up years. She bites her bottom lip to keep the laughter that bubbles up in her throat from erupting; a moment passes before Abraham takes a step back and then she feels Daryl relax.

Beth isn't afraid of Abraham. What's he gonna do to her? She's here on her own volunteerism, and for the most part she does what she's told. All the same, if Daryl, or Rosita, or any of them think she's going back to the bigger group without those kids, the fight that's about to happen will be much larger than what just passed between her and Abraham.

The other guys in their scouting party are standing back, silently observing. She doesn't know them very well, but they've been very kind thus far. She isn't surprised, however, when they all turn to go back to the original trail. Daryl's watching her, and she finally lets her eyes meet his. She gives one small nod and then tips her head in the direction she thinks the kids went.

Daryl calls, "Abe. Hey, man. Hold up." He turns and jogs over to Abraham, quietly telling him what they're gonna do.

Abraham's entire face turns beet red and he shakes his head angrily before stomping off, away from the heap of Walker bodies.

Rosita swings back to Beth and says, "You're goin' after the kids?"

Beth nods. She feels a little defensive suddenly--wants to explain herself, wants to shout at all of them that letting those two kids go defeats the purpose of their mission. At the same moment, though, she's so angry at them that she's afraid if she doesn't hold on to her temper, she'll say things she will regret.

Rosita runs over to her and clasps her in a tight hug. "You're doin' the right thing, Beth. But I can't come with you. I can't," she says as she pulls back, and her dark brown eyes seem to plead with Beth in a way that her words cannot. _Please understand,_ they say. 

She hasn't gotten to spend that much time with Rosita, but every little bit has been something she enjoyed. As Daryl walks back towards them, Beth just feels grateful that she doesn't have to explain anything to him. They are on the same page, and that's why she loves him so much.

"It's okay," she lies, and Rosita gives her a shaky smile. "Be safe," she says, touching the other girl's shoulder.

"You, too," Rosita whispers, hugging her again before turning to rejoin Abraham and the others. 

As they disappear back through the trees, Beth instantly starts looking at the ground. The grass is bent in every direction, but she searches for a smaller footprint, or anything that might help them know which way to go.

She's busy with that for a few minutes before she realizes that Daryl's not doing the same. She glances up at him, to find him watching her intently, his crossbow slung over one arm. "What?" she finally asks, because he must have something to say if he's not looking for tracks, same as her. 

"I will never leave you, y'know that. But this's a bad idea," he says, his voice very soft, devoid of anger or accusation.

"Why?" Beth asks, her voice shrill to her own ears. "Why do you think it's a bad idea?"

Daryl's eyes flinch, but his tone remains even. "Doncha remember what happened to us the last time we got separated from our group?"

Her throat gets tight, and tears prick at the backs of her eyes, but Beth straightens her spine, and stands up as tall as she can. "They're kids, Daryl. We can't..."

She slowly drops his gaze because the gravity of their decision hits her all at once. 

He steps forward, wrapping an arm around her neck, pulling her into his chest. "I know," he says lowly. "But we're stupid dumb fucks for doin' this."

Beth reaches up, her hand fisting in the back of his leather vest. "God protects fools and little children, right?" she asks.

Daryl snorts as he presses his lips to her forehead. "Maybe we're covered, one way or another."

 

 

After about ten minutes, Daryl picks out what he thinks are smaller footprints, and they follow the path for a bit. Beth feels as if each hair follicle on her body is attuned to every source of noise as they walk deeper into the forest, but then Daryl whispers, "There," and she sees the trail as clearly as she couldn't see it back in the mess of the glen. 

It's midday, so they've got time, but she starts worrying about what they'll do when it gets dark, and then she just starts praying, inaudibly. _Let us find those kids. Let us find those kids._

They walk in silence for a long while before Daryl says, "If and when we find these kids, y'know that older one's not gonna take too nicely to us tryin' to give him a shot and haul him back to D.C., right? He was like a feral cat back there. God knows what he's been through."

Beth smiles, her eyes tracing the edges of the angel wings on Daryl's back that peek out from behind his pack. "I do okay with wild animals," she says, and Daryl glances over his shoulder at her. "Gotta way with 'em." He stops for a short moment to look at her fully and she winks at him.

He grumbles something as he turns away from her again that sounds vaguely like, "Ain't no wild animal," and she can't help the giggle that wells up. 

"Not anymore," she calls.

He waves his hand back at her, and she laughs again, but the quick repeat of the gesture silences her. He's not waving off what she's saying, he's giving her a warning for something. 

Instantly, Beth reaches for the knife strapped to her calf, and as she straightens up, she sees what Daryl's sees, just beyond a small creek about ten yards from them.

A Walker, all alone, is wandering along the edge, almost falling in a couple of times before somehow righting itself and continuing on. 

It's just one, and shouldn't be frightening at all given their history, but Beth's heart starts pounding as hard as it had during the fight they'd been in the hour before. She didn't expect it to be this hard, coming back out. She knew it would be difficult, but it's almost like she thought she was tougher than she actually is; it's starting to annoy her, just how afraid she is.

After what she's been through, she expected more resilience from herself. 

Daryl leans down in front of her, but she can't see what he's doing. Then he straightens up and throws a rock that makes enough noise to attract the Walker. It starts to move towards them, but before it can fall in the water, Daryl aims and fires an arrow right through its head. It falls backward with a muffled thud, and they wait.

Beth breathes so shallowly she starts to feel faint and just about the time Daryl puts his arm up to give the all clear, she's forced to take a deep cleansing gulp of oxygen or pass out.

He looks back at her. "Let's fill up what we got with water and move on. Trail goes the same direction the Walker was headed, so maybe it heard the baby."

"Okay," Beth nods.

After they've filled their extra water containers and they've got their packs back on, they start moving west. The sun follows their steps all day, and though the trail doesn't grow cold, there is no sound of a baby and no children to be seen anywhere. 

Once the sun begins its descent in front of them, Daryl puts a hand out, touching her elbow as she moves abreast of him. "We're gonna have to make camp, Beth. While it's still light."

"I know," she says. She glances around at a cluster of three trees nearby and points towards them. "This looks good."

Daryl turns and walks a few steps ahead of her to see the other side of the trees. When he comes back around them a moment later, he says, "If we don't find them tomorrow, we're gonna head back to the road and the group." He sighs heavily, and doesn't meet her eyes as he says, "This ain't gonna be like when I went lookin' for Sophia; I'm not wastin' my time. If we don't find 'em tomorrow, then we agree they're gone. Okay?"

Beth feels tears prick her eyes, whether for those kids, or for the Daryl who searched so diligently for a dead girl, she's not really sure. It's all mixed up inside her, and all she can do is nod again. Since he's not looking at her, however, he doesn't see her agreement. His eyes come back to hers forcefully. "Okay?" he asks again, this time his tone is sharp, urgent.

She closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around him, sliding her hands down between the back of his neck and his backpack. "Okay," she murmurs, stretching up to press her lips to his.

He cups her face in his palms and searches her eyes; she can only guess that he thinks she might be disappointed, so she forces her lips into a semblance of a smile. "I love you," she says, a whisper in the frantic pulse of quiet they expect to be disrupted by the undead at any moment.

Daryl's eyes close in something akin to relief and he crushes her against him. Then he kisses her like maybe they've got time for something else--hard, hot, and possessively. Beth gasps, taken by surprise by his sudden passion.

He lets her go only seconds later to swing his backpack down to the forest floor. He begins removing the noisemakers he packed and as he sets up their camp, Beth quickly starts to look for firewood. The rest of it is terrifying, but this part, their silent ability to prepare a place of safety for the night is the one thing from those days gone by that brings her a sense of peace.

(Beth and Daryl from D.C. have a lot on Beth and Daryl fresh from the prison in a lot of ways, but there are some things that will always be a part of them.)

She tries to focus on their greater strength and ability to get back home now instead of all they stand to lose if they don't.

When Daryl remains quiet all through their sparse dinner, she wonders if he's doing the same.

As the embers start to wane, Daryl motions for her to come sit beside him. "I'll keep watch, you sleep," he says.

Beth snuggles against him moments later, but instantly thinks it's a bad idea. The odds of them curling up together and losing their alertness is pretty high, but Daryl's arm clamps tight around her and she can't bring herself to say anything about it. And then she finds she can't sleep anyway; too many possibilities going through her mind. 

If they don't find those kids, it's gonna eat away at her. Or at least, as she listens to the steady beat of Daryl's heart under her ear, she fears that will be the situation. So what if they make it back safe and sound, and she's there when Maggie's baby comes? Will she think of the phantom baby out here in the woods every time she looks at her niece or nephew?

Will she think of that boy, and his wild eyes, every time she sees Carl, who's finally getting a chance to grow up normally?

At some point she drifts off without meaning to, because when she jerks awake, she's lying with her head on Daryl's pack and he's across the fire from her. The embers are all but gone, but the faint light shows his outline clearly enough. "Daryl?" she whispers as she sits up.

His form barely moves, but his voice comes lowly through the darkness. "I had to move away. Was gettin' too sleepy cuddled up like that."

Beth feels an involuntary smile tug at her lips. "You wanna trade? You sleep for a bit, I'll keep watch."

There is a beat of silence as she waits for him to agree or argue with her that she didn't sleep near long enough, but when he speaks again, it's to say, "You ever thought about having a baby?"

It's so not what she expected to him to say (ever?) that it takes a long moment for the words to fully register. And after they do, she still can only respond with, "What?"

"What're we gonna do if we find those kids, Beth? They ain't got nobody. We gonna take 'em back to D.C. and do what with 'em? Give 'em to Rick and Michonne? Glenn and Maggie?" His words feel like bullets, striking her brain in quick succession.

She answers him honestly. "I don't know, Daryl. I really hadn't thought that far ahead." She pauses, thinking on it for a bit. "There's lots of people in D.C. who lost their kids, though. I mean, think of some of the people in Pastor Gabriel's congregation. Jenna, Mark, or what's his name...? Antwone? I think they all lost family members. There's lots of people who would probably take kids in. Even Carol might, come to think of it."

He makes some low, non-committal sound in his throat, and the dark shape of him moves slightly, leaning forward to poke the almost-dead embers with a stick. 

Beth clears her throat. "Or we could keep them."

Daryl snorts. "You're actin' like they'd even like us! Or anyone, for that matter. Did you hear that boy snarl atcha like a rabid dog? You mighta worked some magic on me, but not everyone's gonna be so easy."

Beth laughs out loud at that; it erupts out of her unexpectedly and she slaps her hand over her own mouth. "Right," she says from behind her palm. "You were a fuckin' walk in the park."

She can't see his face in the darkness, but he stops moving, as though frozen by her words. She imagines the offended expression morphing into chagrin as he stares at her. "I corrupted you," he says softly. "Never used to say the f-word."

"Oh, Daryl," she says, shaking her head. She crawls around the campfire to sit beside him. Looping her arm through his, she leans her cheek on his bicep. "I never used to say the f-word out loud. I always thought it, though." She reaches up with her free hand to touch his face, gently tucking his hair behind his ear. "I have thought about having a baby," she whispers. "Your baby. _Our_ baby. How could I not?"

His whole body shrugs under hers, and he mutters, "I dunno."

Cupping his jaw in her hand, she brings his mouth to hers, kissing him softly before rubbing her nose back and forth against his. "Oh, you've thought about it, too, don't lie."

He mumbles another wordless noise, turning into her and burying his face in her hair as he does so. Beth presses her lips to his ear. "Nobody can make love like you do and not think about it," she whispers. "Every time we're together, even though I know I'm on the Pill, it seems like it might just happen. How could we be so combustible and not make something more? How could I love you like I do, and not just see that love go on and on and on?"

The sound he makes after that reminds her of that breathless whine that sometimes falls from his lips when he comes. She lets her lips graze his earlobe gently, sweetly. "Someday, I want ya to give me a baby. But tomorrow, I wanna find those kids. And if we gotta raise 'em, we will. After we tame 'em. Together. Okay?"

He nods. "I love you, Beth Greene. So much," he whispers, not because there might be Walkers, she knows, but because when he says _so much_ , he feels _so much_.

His lips find hers, and the deep possessiveness of his earlier kiss is still there, but tempered by something more, something she hasn't found a word for yet.

It might be family, but even that doesn't cover it entirely. 

She's still contemplating it as he falls asleep with his head in her lap. She strokes her fingers through his hair, and listens to the night sounds. 

There is no fear, at least for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To any of you who are still reading this story...I'm sorry! I never intended the wait between chapters to be this long. There were various factors, including my schedule just getting very busy, but I am committed to finishing this story before October 12th. I swear it will be done by then, come hell or highwater! 
> 
> And if this got you in your feels at all, let me hear about it. I love Beth and Daryl so much, if I could write them all the time, that's what I'd do, I promise. Life gets in the way!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/americanoutlaw/media/Walking%20Dead/Dixonbroshighknive_zps4eabcfa0.gif.html)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The opening quote for this chapter is lifted from the song "Tell Me a Story" by Phillip Phillips.

_You are the light that leads me  
You are the moon that pulls me_

He's an asshole.

A dirty, redneck asshole.

Always has been, always will be. No amount of playing house with Beth, or even loving Beth with every breath he takes can change that. 

He is what he is, and change is an illusion that no one should ever indulge in.

Because from the moment he sees those kids, he hates them. 

He hates every step they're taking away from their group, he hates every second that puts him and Beth further into the woods, away from the safety of open space. 

He _hates_.

And he ain't felt nothing like that in so long. Not since Terminus. He'd forgotten it was possible to burn inside, like he swallowed acid. It wasn't the heat that Beth provoked in him, it was altogether different. It chars the back of his throat. It stings his eyes.

 _Those fuckin' kids_ , he thinks, the words ugly, filthy epithets. 

And then Beth wraps her arms around him, and whispers her magic words, tells him she wants to make a family with him, and all the awful thoughts abandon him. Hope swells inside him in this grotesque way.

He wonders about being someone's daddy; he considers his own father, who hadn't been much of nothing, and Merle, the piss poor substitute. 

But then Hershel swims in his mind's eye, and Rick. He suddenly wants to ask Glenn if he's scared shitless to be a daddy. He wakes up with Beth's hand in his hair and his mouth resting against the inside of a thigh that is carefully covered by her jeans.

He wants to find those kids, just like she said, but he also wants to strip her naked and come inside her with nothing preventing what might happen.

(It's official, he is fucking _crazy_.)

He rolls his neck and glances up at her. The dawn is breaking, but the sky's not fully lit up yet. She smooths his hair back from his forehad and says in a soft voice, "It's good you woke up, 'cause my leg is dead asleep. Gotta move, baby."

She gives him a gentle shove up and he pulls himself into an upright position as she straightens her leg out, groaning quietly as she tries getting her leg underneath her. He stands as well, helping her get on her feet. She does her little giggle thing, the sound that's been the music of his life these last six months and as she moves into him, he's already lowering his head to put his mouth against hers. He pulls her in tight, hugging her, his hands splayed across the curve of her back and ass, gripping her hard.

When he pulls back, it's just so he can rub his lips over hers teasingly. "Love you," he murmurs, and the tickle of her continued laughter makes the hope inside him not seem so crazy.

"I love you," she whispers, her hands digging into the hair over his neck. She pulls him back for a deeper kiss and shifts her body against his purposefully. 

Maybe this baby idea has got them both going, but he's not gonna mention it. Not now. They've got business to tend to.

They eat some fruit and granola, nothing that requires a fire, and then they clean up their camp, repacking their noisemakers and other items. Once everything's put away, the sun is mostly up so they find the source of their trail and start off again.

And, like a miracle that only Beth Greene could pray for, they find the kids less than an hour later.

The stream they'd come to the day before had essentially run parallel with their journey, and Daryl's impressed with this kid. He's smart at the very least, and there's no telling how long he's been on his own, so some of it is probably pure adaptation. On the other hand, what helps them find the kids is the crying baby. But the boy has the baby hanging in the stream, and he appears to be giving the squalling infant a bath.

It's just lucky that out here, the Walkers have thinned out so much.

Beth stops walking and grabs at Daryl's arm to stop him, too. She makes a movement with her hand, and he realizes she wants him to quietly walk around, sort of blocking them in. He gives her a nod and heads away from her. With the stream right there, and the kid standing in the middle of it, there are only three directions the boy could go, and none of them very quickly. Hopefully they can talk him into giving them a chance before he can gather his stuff and take off again. 

With no Walkers, Daryl's pretty certain of his ability to catch the kid, but it would be much better if they can just get him to come along, willing.

The kid doesn't see Beth until she's right up on him, but he's waist-deep in the water with the baby in his arms, so he can't really run anyway. From the distance Daryl's away from them and the slight wind that's blowing, he can't hear what she says. She's speaking lowly, calmly, and he remembers the stories she's told him about growing up with horses. Some spooked easily, he knows, having been the victim of one of them himself, but he knows Beth is good with this type of thing. 

Like she said, she has a way with wild animals.

She motions to Daryl a moment later, beckoning him closer. He walks quietly, and slowly, so when the kid turns and looks over his shoulder, hopefully he doesn't look like a scary old guy with a weapon strapped on his back.

"This is Daryl," Beth says as he gets near them. "He's my boyfriend," she explains, holding out her hand. Daryl moves forward and slides his fingers through hers so they're standing side-by-side in front of the kid who is watching them with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"If you want to go on, on your own, you can," she continues, her voice soft and reassuring. "But we'd really like it if you came with us. We got a safe place to stay, with no Walkers. You could bring your little brother and you wouldn't have to be scared anymore."

The boy's shaggy bangs aren't hanging in his eyes like they had been the day before; his hair is slicked back, having been washed in the stream at some point. His face is remarkable clean now as well, but a dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks give him a mischievous look. The baby squirms in his arms, having stopped crying, and slaps at the water with his little hands. He's buck naked and Daryl realizes that's how Beth knows the baby's a boy as well.

"I dunno," the kid mutters and Daryl tenses up. Beth's hand squeezes his tightly, which must be a command to shut up before he can even say anything. 

He searches for some patience, for anything that will help him relate to this kid and not just tell him to stop being stupid and come with the grown-ups. When he was that age, would he have listened to any adult? Hell, no. Just like with this kid, there had been no one to trust, no one to depend on. 

He glances at Beth. The sweetness of her spirit is displayed so plainly on her face that he feels a rush of love for her that surpasses anything he's experienced before. She has empathy even though she has no idea what this kid has been through, and here's Daryl, the grown version of this human being and he's the one who can't relate?

What the hell did a Walker Apocalypse do for him if it didn't lead him to this moment in time for a very specific reason?

"Look, man," he says, drawing the kid's eyes back to him. "I get it, I do. I was skeptical as all get out when we first hit Washington. I couldn't believe that there was any place safe with any nice people anymore, because all I seen out here was a bunch of assholes who tried to kill me or take my stuff. But then I got there, and saw that it was all true. But I still needed to know that I could leave any time I wanted, and you can. That's why we're out here, looking for folks. So they can know it, too. You come with us, and if you don't like it, you can take off, no questions asked."

The kid squints at him, sizing him up. Eventually he shakes his head. "Maybe for you," he says, gesturing towards Daryl and Beth with an elbow. "But I'm a kid. I get in there, they're gonna put me in protective services, or whatever. I know what it's like. Happened to me before all this started. My mom, she wasn't always around. So the Child Welfare people came around, bugging us."

The baby slaps the water particularly hard, splashing the both of them. The older boy turns and moves back towards the shore. As he comes out of the water, Daryl sees he's down to his shorts, which are actual swimming trunks, as opposed to underwear. He remembers, out here you make do with whatever you've got. 

Beth says nothing, and Daryl realizes she doesn't know what to say, and truthfully neither does he. Because the kid's right. If they log them in at Registration, that's exactly what will happen to them.

Because if one thing's true about the new world order, it's that it's easier to keep track of such a small number of people in comparison with the old number. 

So Daryl says the only thing he can. "You can stay with us, and if y'don't like it, I'll help y'get out without worryin' about the Welfare check. Deal?"

Daryl sticks his hand out and the kid shifts the baby to his left hip before reaching to shake it. He still looks skeptical, but he shakes Daryl's hand firmly, his grip solid. "You got any food?" he asks as he lets go.

Daryl steps back as Beth starts gushing about what she's got in her pack that he can have, and he watches them silently. Beth offers to hold the baby as the boy eats and she folds a towel she's got into a makeshift diaper. Of course the baby takes right to her, and Daryl has that weird urge to knock her up again pass through him. She glances over at him and smiles warmly, and he knows she thinks everything's gonna be just fine now.

But the kid is still shifty, and Daryl doesn't trust his willingness to come along. He knows all the stuff he did to avoid adults who might have taken him outta his own broken home growing up, and when he reflects on the kid he was, he knows he woulda wanted to trust someone like Beth, but he never would have.

As they sit down on the bank of the stream, Daryl keeps his eyes roaming around the area, watching for Walkers or any other unwanted visitor. 

"What's your name?" Beth asks.

Around a mouthful of apple the kid says, "Shep." Then he swallows, dragging the back of his hand over his mouth. "I'm Shep, and this's Jace." 

"Hello, Jace," Beth says, lifting the baby up so he's standing on her legs. The baby's wobbly arms reach out and his small fist grabs at Beth's nose. "How old are ya?" she asks, moving in to kiss the baby's plump cheek.

"Thirteen," he says, which kinda surprises Daryl, but then he remembers how it seemed like Carl was a little boy one day and then a man the next when he went through a crazy growth spurt. "Jace is about a year old. I don't know his exact birthday. We were with a group, my mom and me, but they..." Here he hesitates and Daryl swings around to watch his face as he's talking. The boy might be a liar, because lying in a survival skill, so there's no telling how much of what comes out of his mouth ought to be believed.

The kid looks away from Beth, who is listening intently. It's either a lie, or just really hard for him to say when he finally utters, "They weren't nice people, and when some of the dead people came, I was able to hide, because I'm small, in the loft of this old barn. Someone killed one of the dead people--really killed them and they either fell on Jace, or maybe they buried Jace under the dead person on purpose, I don't really know. But the dead ones ate everybody else, including my mom. And while they were busy doing that, I snuck down from the top of the barn, got Jace out and ran like crazy. They didn't chase us, 'cause there was plenty of others to eat."

He takes another loud bite of his apple, his eyes moving from Beth's face to Daryl's and back again. "There were lotsa times I wished my mom would die, but I was still sad when it happened. And I couldn't leave Jace. He's not my brother, but he's just a baby. I couldn't leave him, could I?"

Daryl shifts his gaze to Beth's face, sees her blink back tears. "'Course not," she says gently. "You're really brave, Shep. Jace is lucky to have you."

Something inside Daryl (in the old world, he called it his bullshit meter) tells him that at least that part of the story's true. Shep and Jace are both little white kids, though, and he could have easily lied and said they were brothers. Telling the truth like that makes Daryl more uneasy. 

One good truth to get them all to believe four great lies, that had always been his MO. 

_My momma works a lot, so we're on our own a bit. My brother always makes sure we got plenty of food; our daddy taught us to hunt. We got it lots better than other folks, you really don't need to come around here. Sometimes my daddy drinks, and when he does, he might shoot up the house some. My name's Daryl Dixon, I'm eleven years old, and I don't wanna be taken away from my family._

Twenty-five years later, he's not sure which one was the truth.

"We gotta go," he says, drawing everyone's attention. Even the baby looks up at him expectantly, as though he understands. "If we move pretty fast, maybe we can catch up with our group. They're combing the area for survivors, so they will have moved on, but prob'ly stopped again somewhere."

Shep doesn't argue, he just finishes the food Beth gave him and then puts his still wet clothes back on. Beth asks him if he has more stuff in his bag, other clothes that aren't wet. "No," he answers, tugging his shirt on awkwardly. "I got some clothes for Jace that I picked up on the way, but so far none of the houses I've found have anything that fits me. No big deal, though, they'll dry soon enough."

Daryl can't even reconcile the snapping, foul-mouthed kid of yesterday with this logical one before them. His sense of unease broadens even more. 

Beth pulls out a long piece of cloth and hands it to Daryl. "Strap Jace to my front, will you, so my arms don't get tired from holding him."

Shep looks over at her, a small smile curving his mouth. "Wish I'd had something like that. Dragging him around has been so hard! That will make it so much easier!"

As Daryl stands in front of her and she holds the baby so he's facing out, Beth murmurs quietly, "Too good to be true?" and Daryl feels something like relief sweep over him. She hasn't been completely fooled either.

"Yeah," he returns in an equally low voice. "Watch him carefully."

Daryl ties a knot over the baby's stomach and Jace's small hands reach down to pat Daryl's knuckles. He looks back into Beth's eyes and then leans down to kiss her. "He doesn't trust us, not really," he whispers.

She nods.

"Y'all ready?" Beth asks as Daryl steps back.

Shep flashes another grin at them, seemingly impressed with Beth's more pronounced accent. "Where you from?" he asks.

They start walking back in the direction they'd come from and she answers, "Georgia. What about you?"

"Illinois. Mt. Vernon, Illinois. A place that doesn't exist anymore." He keeps his eyes forward as they're walking. "Well, it's still there, but nobody that's alive is there anymore."

Beth moves closer to Shep, putting a hand on his shoulder. He visibly jumps when she does that. "I know," is all she says, a wealth of understanding in two words. "Just wait till you see D.C., though. My first day there, I saw a guy talking on a cellphone, and it was like something out of a movie. It felt like I'd time-traveled or something."

By the time they find a place to camp that night, Daryl has listened to Beth do all she can in the space of eight hours to build a relationship with Shep, and Jace has fallen to sleep against her chest. She tucked his head into the strap of her sling to keep it from lolling the whole way.

Still as they settle down to sleep, Daryl's eyes never leave Shep's shadow. They ain't got much to steal, but what little they do have has to sustain them until they can get back to the group.

The kid lays down on the ground near the campfire and doesn't move at all. Beth wakes up halfway through the night to give Daryl a break and he warns her again, whispering, "I don't know if he'll abandon the baby, but..."

Beth puts a finger against his lips. "It'll be okay," she whispers back.

Exhaustion has Daryl falling to sleep almost against his will, but his dreams are all about a boy with freckles robbing them blind.

 

 

In the morning, what wakes him is Jace's soft cries. Beth is cooing to him, saying she wished she had some milk for him, but he eagerly takes some canned peaches she slides into his mouth. He still cries intermittently as he's chewing, almost as if he can't decide if he likes it or not.

Daryl rubs his eyes and looks around. Before he can fully register anything, Beth says, "He's gone."

Daryl jerks himself into a sitting position, and scans the area with frantic eyes.

"He didn't take anything that wasn't his, Daryl. He even left the clothes for Jace." She points to a small pile of things that remain where Shep had been sleeping. 

"You just let him go?" he asks. "Why didn't ya wake me?" he demands, not even giving her a chance to speak.

"I let him go because we promised we would, _remember?_ " She says the last word with guarded emphasis and Daryl finally looks at her face. "I was awake when he gathered up his stuff, but I just watched silently as he made his decision. Couldn't make him stay even if I wanted to."

" _Fuck_ ," Daryl mutters getting to his feet. He searches the ground for Shep's footprints. 

"He kept on the way we were going. Maybe we'll find him again," she says.

Some emotion wells up in Daryl's chest, seizing him in this horrible grip. He almost can't take a full breath, and he wants to punch something really, really bad. Beth sits calmly on the ground, pushing peaches into the baby's mouth. He just whispers more swear words, and tries not to make eye contact with her.

"Daryl," she says, the tone of her voice one he has become intimately familiar with. It's indulgent, benign. It showers him in love and pisses him off at the same time.

"Don't," he says, holding out a finger towards her. "Just, don't." He can't handle her faith-filled lectures at this point, not when they'd come this far out of the way, not when that kid is gonna end up dead anyway.

Beth ignores his command, of course. "We've still got the baby. It's not a wasted trip."

Daryl walks away from her, steps past the noisemakers they'd put up the night before, edges his way just beyond their farcical cove of safety. Tears he can't control leak from his eyes, and he suddenly realizes Shep isn't him; Shep was never him. Shep was always Merle.

And he just lost him, all over again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/americanoutlaw/media/grinch_zpsfa6320de.gif.html)   
> 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> The opening quote for this chapter is lifted from the song "Tell Me a Story" by Phillip Phillips.

_Tell me a story long and true  
We aren't what we say  
We are what we do_

There are very few things that hadn't changed when the Turn happened.

Beth Greene's love of babies had been one thing that stayed the same; or maybe a better way of saying it would be that she grew to love babies even more when new life and wonder were juxtaposed with walking dead things.

Yeah, that was probably more how it had gone.

Judith had been a light at the prison; she had made it even more necessary that all the adults make that place as safe and secure as possible.

(She had made Lori's death not quite so unbearable because they'd all had to do something to keep the baby from crying.)

(Because. Walkers.)

As Beth changes Jace's diaper, dumping out the little poop the kid had made and then refolding the towel in a different way to get it back on him, she wants to tell Daryl that they ought to make a beeline back to D.C. They ought to forget about Abraham and the company as quickly as they had forgotten about them.

But Daryl's not currently speaking to her, though he is standing alertly nearby as she uses water from the stream to clean up the baby.

The baby reaches up as she leans over him, his small fist grabbing a handful of her hair. He yanks on it and Beth loses her balance, surprised at his strength. "Whoa, baby," she murmurs, throwing a hand out to catch herself. "Careful, now." She pries his fingers loose, pulling a few strands of her own hair out in the meantime.

Then she scoops him back up and ties the make-shift baby sling around herself. Daryl's eyes cut to her and away again and then he starts walking. She falls in line behind him. 

She's not really sure she understands why he's so upset about the boy, Shep, having left them behind. She can surmise he's worried about the boy, and that the boy had become important to him (to them both, really) in a very short amount of time. She knows that she's already completely smitten with Jace, too, but she's always been baby hungry anyway. 

Daryl obviously doesn't want to talk about it. He hasn't been this surly or silent since those first few days they spent together when the prison fell. 

She guesses that it must have something to do with all the baby talk they had the night before, and just his general attitude changing, but she wishes he'd give her something else to go on.

Not to mention, she feels like he blames her for Shep leaving, and it was hardly her fault. However, now is not the time to yell at him for being an ass; after all these months together, she has at least learned the importance of silence. Letting him stew on something eventually solves it one way or another, and if an eruption is necessary, they'll get to it. They always do.

She's tired of him not acknowledging her, though, except to stop if she said they needed to stop. So she picks up her pace, catches up with him and slides her hand into his. He jerks in surprise, but doesn't try to unlock their fingers once she's laced hers through his. His eyes slant her way before he shrugs his opposite shoulder to readjust the crossbow.

The baby starts crying soon after, though, and Beth can't figure out what's wrong with him. She has to let go of Daryl to try different soothing techniques. Eventually Jace's cries subside to periodic sniffles, but he's never completely consoled. Beth murmurs into the crown of his head, "Do you miss your brother, baby? Is that the problem?"

Daryl huffs and puffs next to her, but still says nothing.

"Oh, thank God!" 

Beth's head jerks up when she hears someone speak, and just up the path ahead of them stands Rosita, Sasha, Bob, and Tyreese. "We found them!" Tyreese shouts back behind them, and Beth can't see who he's talking to, because they're just coming out of the trees on the right side of the path. She feels Daryl stiffen, the sudden alertness in his bones nothing to do with them coming back into contact with some of their group.

Abraham comes out of the trees, a struggling Shep in his grasp. "Let me go, you cocksucker, let me go!" Shep cries, but he freezes when he sees Beth and Daryl and the baby.

Before Beth really knows what Daryl's about, he's moved forward, closing the distance between himself and Abraham very quickly. "Let 'em go," he mutters. The lethal tone of his voice, though muted, carries densely through the trees. 

Rosita runs forward to hug Beth, babbling, "Sasha and Bob wouldn't let us go on. They said there was no way they could face Maggie if they went back to Washington without you. They basically made it impossible for Abraham to keep the group moving forward!"

Beth can't quite hear what's going on between Daryl, Abraham, and Shep because of Sasha flanking her other side and grabbing her up when Rosita lets go of her. "You're alright?" she asks, and then there's the elevation of Abraham's voice and the sound of someone getting hit. Beth shoves herself past both Rosita and Sasha just as Daryl runs at Abraham, his head hitting the bigger man mid-chest. They both go down in a collision of limbs and grunts, and Beth's eyes immediately go to Shep, who is standing there with a stricken look on his small face. 

Bob and Tyreese move to break-up the fight, and Beth runs as fast as she can with Jace strapped to her chest to Shep's side. She grabs his arm, and his wild eyes come up to hers. That's when it hits both of them; he'd had another perfect opportunity to escape and he hadn't even tried. He yards against her hold, shaking his head, causing his hair to fly across his face.

"Shep, Shep!" Beth says sharply, her voice reminding her of her own mother for the first time in her entire life. "Are you alright?" she demands because it's the only thing that matters. She's not worried about Daryl, he can hold his own, and from the sounds of things behind her Bob and Tyreese have put a stop to the fight, though there are still snarling voices and the sounds of people spitting blood.

Shep's entire body just seems to melt when her words register with him. He keeps shaking his head, only this time, he also says, "I didn't mean to cause no harm! They wouldn't let me go! I told 'em and told 'em you were alive, you were comin', but they thought I's lyin'!"

Beth puts her hand on his cheek, attempting to slow the frantic motion of his head. He slows under her touch, and then very carefully, she pulls him against her and Jace, but she leans down so that the baby is on the same level with Shep. Jace's small arms circle his brother's neck, and he makes a gurgling sound of recognition. Beth slides one hand around him, plants it firmly in the middle of his back and holds on to him. "It's okay," she coos. "You're okay."

"So, as you can see," comes Bob's voice, tinged with just a hint of sarcasm. "Beth and Daryl are alive and well. Well, alive at any rate. He knock your tooth out, brother?"

Beth glances behind her to see Daryl attempting to stem the flow of blood coming from his nose. "Nah, I'm a'right," he says, tipping his head back. He turns and walks a few feet away as Rosita moves towards him with a handkerchief. He takes it from her with a hushed, "Thanks," and then she goes to Abraham's side. He's still sitting on the ground, catching his breath, it looks like.

He glances around at all of them, and Beth wonders if he still thinks he's the leader. Carefully, he gets to his feet, with Rosita's help, and then he asks gruffly, "Can we head back, then?"

"Just as soon as you apologize to the boy," Daryl says, swinging back around. 

Their eyes meet, another tussle in a different way snapping back and forth between them. "If it weren't for him, Lou wouldna got bit." Abraham jabs a finger in Shep's direction.

"Yeah," Rosita says, placing a hand on Abraham's chest. "And we wouldn't know that you can give the cure to someone who got bit and it stops the infection from spreading. So, it's not really something to get mad about, Abraham. He's a child," she says, her voice softer. "A _child_."

Shep steps back from her and Jace, and Beth drops her arms, to show him he has a choice, still. She straightens up, hefting the baby with her as she does so. "He misses you," she says, and she means Jace. (And Daryl. But that's a whole other conversation.) "Now that we're here, you're safe, Shep. You can stay if you want."

Daryl comes up on her left side, startling her because his voice is loud and decisive beneath the bloodied rag he's holding to his face. "We want ya to stay, Shep. I'll kill anyone tries to hurt you, you know it."

Beth's eyes come up then, and she sees someone who is at once intimately familiar to her, and then vastly different. She loves him, and wants to understand him all over again. He cuts her a brief glance, but keeps his gaze focused on Shep. 

That's when she says what she's wanted to say all day. "We're going back to D.C. We aren't going all the way to Richmond. It makes no sense, to drag this baby all the way down there, and back. The best thing would be for me and Daryl to take these kids back to the city and get them settled." She glances at the others who are standing around silently watching before turning her gaze squarely on Shep. "And if you wanna come with us, we'd love to have you."

Shep blinks rapidly, then slowly nods his head. He reaches up because Jace is wiggling and straining to get to him, and before she can say anything Daryl unknots the wrap at her shoulder. Beth eases the baby away from her body and into Shep's waiting arms. "Okay," he says. "I'll come."

Beth looks to Daryl, wanting to exchange smiles, but he's already turned back to Abraham. He gestures silently, until Abraham, his eye already swelling up where Daryl had landed a punch or two, lopes forward. "Hey, kid," he mutters gruffly. "I'm sorry about all that. I wasn't gonna hurt you, I just didn't want ya runnin' off, causin' more Walkers to come find us, you know?"

Shep nods jerkily, but mostly he just buries his face in Jace's neck.

"Let's head back," Abraham says with a deep sigh. "We'll set y'all up to head back to D.C. tomorrow. I think we can spare a vehicle."

That's when Daryl finally looks at Beth, his face still set in grim lines. His eyes are softer, though, and he puts his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it warmly. "Good idea, Greene," he murmurs. Then he leans into her, pressing his lips to her temple. 

He moves then, back towards Bob and Tyreese. He shakes hands with them, slapping their backs enthusiastically.

"You wanna carry Jace?" Beth asks. She holds up the wrap. "I can strap him to you."

Shep squeezes the baby against his chest, but then shakes his head. "No, I think it's better if someone else carries him."

"I'll take 'im," Daryl says, coming back to them. Beth throws him a surprised look. "I shoulda taken a turn sooner," he says, winking at her. 

"Your nose okay?" she asks as he's stuffing the bloodied rag into a pocket on his pack.

"Ain't broke," he says with a laugh. Leaning close again, his whisper tickles the apple of her cheek. "He kinda hits like a pussy. Who knew?"

Beth giggles uncontrollably, because it feels like everything has snapped back into its proper place. As they get the baby situated on his chest, one of his hands snakes out to squeeze her hip. Maybe it's an apology of sorts, but when his thumb sneaks under the hem of her shirt, there's something else. 

The promise between them has always been strong, but something flares brighter right then, stealing the breath from her lungs. She reaches up, touching his face gently. She mouths _I love you_ and Daryl's barely perceptible nod speaks volumes.

He turns away as Sasha begins filling them in on what had happened earlier that day. First she explains that she and Bob had been irate when Rosita, Abraham, and the others had come back without Beth and Daryl the day before. After a long standoff, and taking a vote amongst their party of 50 or so, they finally agreed to make a base camp before going to search for Beth and Daryl. Shep had come across their path, running pell-mell with a few Walkers at his back that they had been unaware of. Abraham recognized him, and grabbed him to find out what had happened to Beth and Daryl. In the ensuing struggle, the Walkers had taken them by surprise, and one bit Lou before they could kill all of them. He was bit on the shoulder, in an impossible place to cut away.

"It was Bob's idea," Sasha says, pride evident in her voice. "He was gonna die, so it was our only shot. He gave him two doses of the Cure, and though we can't tell yet if the wound will heal in a normal way, the fever never took hold."

"Where's Lou?" Beth asks.

"Marcus and Sam took him back to the base camp. We should be able to get back to it by dusk," Bob offers. 

They've all fallen into a line of sorts, and Daryl is a ways ahead of her, Sasha, and Bob. Shep is at his side, taking two steps for every one of Daryl's, his short legs just not long enough. She suddenly sees an image, something otherworldly, for just a moment. It's Daryl, still with his angel wings, but with a young man walking at his side whose stride now matches his, and a little boy holding on to his other hand. 

She reaches out for Sasha's hand, and then Bob's. "Thanks for standing up for us, y'all." She squeezes their palms in her own. "When we get back to Washington, and I tell Maggie that story, maybe she won't be so mad at me for not sayin' good-bye."

Sasha's eyes widen. "You didn't say good-bye to your sister? Your _pregnant_ sister?"

"I know, right?" Beth says, a nervous giggle working its way up her throat. "Of course, I didn't think I'd be going back a week later. I thought a whole month would give her time to be mad, but then just be super glad when we got back. Guess that'll teach me?" 

Bob blows out a low sound. "All I'm gonna say is, sure glad it's not me."

Beth elbows him. Then she sees Shep reach for Daryl's hand. It's awkward, the way their hands fumble together, but it's also the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

"Somehow," she says with a big smile, "I think it's gonna be worth it."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because it's just a matter of time now:
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/americanoutlaw/media/Walking%20Dead/bethylcanonbychandra75_zpsb90dcbbc.jpg.html)  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a video that I just found that's exactly all the moments that caused me to write all of this. If in anyway I conveyed the magic of them, I'm well pleased. It's been a journey for me as well. I thought this chapter might end up being really long, but ultimately it didn't feel right to drag it out. Daryl and Beth are minimalists, it just works for them. So I hope this works for you. Thank you for all the love. I hope this story made the hiatus a little more bearable!
> 
> [Apparently YouTube can't embed here, so here's the link:]  
> http://youtu.be/unfTgqwezyI
> 
>  
> 
> The opening quote for this chapter is lifted from the song "Tell Me a Story" by Phillip Phillips.

_Just pieces of a puzzle_

He never thought this would happen.

Living dead things. Loving a girl. Saving some kid.

(Some _kids_.)

He never thought taking on the responsibility of those kids would bring such relief to him, that a weight would lift off his shoulders in a way that as they walk through the forest he feels like his feet aren't quite touching the ground.

By the time they get back to the encampment Lou is up and walking around. The bite on his neck doesn't look so good and it's tender to the touch, but he's not sick. "Feel a lot better now than I did 'bout six hours ago," he says, giving a weak grin, but a grin all the same.

Bob looks plumb tickled. His doctorin', as it were, had this result, something that could further impact the saving of the world. He should be proud, he really should, so Daryl says that and claps Bob on the back. Bob's smile is bigger than any expression Daryl's ever seen on the guy's face.

That's when Shep tugs on his arm. "There's a Cure? It fixes the dead people?" he asks.

Glancing down at the kid, who has practically attached himself to Daryl's hip (which, strangely enough doesn't bother Daryl at all), he motions towards Bob. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, Bob's the one who gives the shots to everyone. That's what we're doing out here, looking for people like you'n Jace, so we can give 'em the shot, the one that keeps ya from becoming a Walker. You interested?"

Shep's brown eyes narrow some as he looks back and forth between Bob and Daryl, and then over at Lou who happens to be being hugged by Beth at the moment. "Shots hurt," he states, though it doesn't seem to be a positive or a negative thing from his tone.

"Yeah, there's a bit of a pinch," Bob says. "But it will be over like that," he snaps his fingers. "And then you and your brother will be safer. Seem like a good idea?" Daryl has his own urge to disperse hugs as he watches Bob's simplistic approach work with the boy. 

Jace is wiggling against Daryl's chest, his little arms and legs moving excitedly, and Shep reaches up, putting his hand flat over the baby's small torso. His eyes meet Daryl's and Daryl just gives him a small nod. The boy clears his throat. "I think so, yeah," he says. "We both better have it."

Bob and Sasha take the baby from Daryl and Shep goes with them over to the small area that had been set up as a triage. Daryl squeezes Shep's shoulder before he walks away, telling him he's just going over to talk to Abraham about what vehicle they'll be taking the next day.

As Daryl moves towards where Rosita and Abraham are standing, leaned up against one of the tanks in their convoy, Beth falls into step beside him. "Y'think Shep's gonna stick it out this time?" she asks in a quiet voice, sliding her arm through his.

His chest gets tight, just at the way her arm curls around his, the way her feet fall into rhythm with his. Every day is a lesson on how he can love Beth Greene more than the previous one somehow. He reaches over with his other hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. "I think so. I think the sooner we get him away from some of these people and just have him with us, the better. Any skittishness is gonna be more about these assholes who tried to hurt him than anything else."

Beth's lips quirk up as they near Abraham. "Prime suspect number one," she mutters, and Daryl presses his lips into a grim line.

He doesn't make any small talk, he just leads with, "So, which car you givin' us?"

Abraham sighs dramatically, but then nudges Rosita, pointing to a cloth bag lying on the tire of the tank. Daryl's consolation to the vague throbbing in his nasal cavity is the fact that Abe's left eye is rapidly swelling shut. Rosita leads them around the tank to a white Mazda that's parked on the other side, out of sight of the camp. After she digs through the cloth bag, she produces a key, which she hands to Daryl. "'Course, we don't have any car seats, but since traffic is pretty much non-existent, you should be fine." Daryl appreciates her attempt at humor, and gives her a half-smile as he starts to put the key into his jeans pocket.

Beth tucks her hand into his pocket, too, tangling her fingers with his. Rosita murmurs, "Gonna get back to Abraham," but Daryl hardly spares her a glance because Beth's nails are pressing into his hip just so. She slides the key out, her eyes glancing off his teasingly, and she scoots in front of him to unlock the car.

She opens the front door and pushes the button to unlock the back door, and then shimmies around him to open the back door. He knows she knows she has his full attention, but there is no way in hell they're alone enough for what her eyes're saying.

She climbs in the car, checking to see if the seat belts are intact. "Looks good," she says. As she starts to slide out, Daryl moves so he's blocking her in a bit. She gets her feet on the ground, straightens up to her full height, and backs herself right into him because he hasn't given her much room.

"Daryl," she says, elbowing him. "Back up."

She can't even quite turn around because of the way he placed his feet, on either side of hers. Sliding his hands around her waist, he tugs her back into him. "Don't wanna," he whispers, letting his lips find her earlobe. He loops his tongue around the soft part of her ear, and she arches against him so artfully, he instantly regrets doing it.

(Because he doesn't need a hard-on out here, where there is nothing they can do about it. Seriously. But he's never really been able to resist temptation when it comes to Beth.)

She says his name on a high pitched little whine, which makes it worse, so he buries his face in her neck. "'M sorry, that was fuckin' stupid."

She rubs her ass against him, and he can also feel her nodding her head. "I agree," she breathes, but she grabs one of his hands and drags it up to her breast, under her shirt. The sweet, hard little nub of her nipple is nearly enough to make him come in his jeans, for no reason other than he loves that she's there, just as quickly as he is. And that for all the things that have happened in the last few days, their connection, unspoken and powerful, remains so vivid, so delicious. 

He edges the cup of her bra down, rubbing the side of his thumb back and forth against her nipple. Her breathing gets heavy with her arousal; the image that flashes through his mind ridiculously fast involves him yanking her jeans down, bending her over, shoving her back in the car, and climbing in behind her. He can practically feel the wet heat of her surrounding him; the zipper of his own jeans is a obstacle that is laughably easy to overcome.

(For like a split second, only in his head.)

Beth has a hand around his neck, her short nails digging into his skin and she gasps the Lord's name, a sure sign of a different kind of apocalypse. It's been less than a week since they were last together, but Daryl supposes when each time might be your last, it gets pretty fucking hot, pretty fucking fast. 

"Daryl?"

Shep's voice cuts through it all more sharply than a double-edged knife, and while his dick doesn't go down immediately, he can at least let in a thought besides fucking Beth.

He eases himself back just a little and looks over his shoulder to see the kid standing there, with Jace on his hip. "Yeah, buddy?" he calls.

"I just wondered where you were. We got our shots, and Jace only cried a little bit."

Beth turns around, since there's room for her to do so now, drawing his gaze back to her. The grin on her face is the cutest thing Daryl's ever seen. An echoing expression fights its way on to his lips as well and he says to Shep, "That's cool, dude. Give me and Beth a minute here, okay? We'll come over there and make some food in a sec."

"Okay," the boy calls back, but he walks back around the tank slowly.

"He can see still us," Beth murmurs, leaning up to press her lips to his.

"So, no funny business?" Daryl asks, fighting to keep his expression serious.

"Not right now, I don't think so." She wraps her arms around his neck and squeezes him tight, giggling softly before sliding out from between him and the car. "Think about your grandma," she whispers, and he blows out a laughing breath. Resting his hands on the roof of the car, he hears her tell Shep as she rounds the corner of the tank, "Daryl just has to take care of couple things with the car. He'll be here in a minute."

He hadn't known in the beginning, but he learned very quickly that Beth's one wicked streak lay right here, in the power she has over him. Somehow, that's the thought that calms him down, relaxing his body. Because she wields it so delicately and so sweetly, it's nothing he wouldn't do anyway. Everything Beth wants, he wants, too. 

He wonders if she wants him to give her a baby as much as he wants to give her one, even though they picked up two on the road.

( _Fucking crazy_ , did he mention that?)

He rejoins the group, and they get busy with supper preparations. He manages to avoid making eye contact with Beth again until it's dark outside, that way if he gets hard again, no one can tell.

(Well, no one except Beth, who is provoking on purpose. In a way that thoroughly delights him.)

 

 

They start for D.C. early the next morning, and Beth insists that Daryl drives while Shep sits in the front seat. 

She sits in the back with the baby, because even though she knows they'll go slow and careful, she just wants to be able to protect Jace if necessary.

For all that it's taken six days to wander around and find two children, they hit the city gates within an hour of leaving their company. As they drive back in and the guards at the gate ask what's up, the knot of fear in her belly gets tighter. 

She knows Maggie will forgive her, _eventually_. But she also knows that the initial confrontation might be pretty spectacular. She doesn't want Shep and Jace's first time seeing her sister to be scary, so she leaves them at the house with Daryl while she goes to her sister's alone.

It's just dumb luck that Maggie's even home, but Beth takes it as sign that she's supposed to deal with this now and get it out of the way. As soon as her sister opens the door and sees Beth standing there, she starts crying, waves her hands about pregnancy hormones, and then grabs Beth in a tight hug. "You're in big, big trouble," she gushes, but it doesn't sound very dangerous, so Beth holds on just as tight and apologizes over and over again.

"Too long with Daryl," Maggie mutters, dragging Beth into the house. She shuts the front door and pulls on Beth's arm until they are sitting on the sofa in the living room.

"What?" Beth asks, unsure what that means.

"You don't talk like you used to. I was just telling Glenn, it's being with Daryl, you've grown quiet. Being with him has changed you."

Beth contemplates that for a long moment, and then reaches for Maggie's hand. She returns the pressure of her sister's hard grip, squeezing tightly while nodding her head. "I have changed, Maggie, but none of it's bad. I didn't tell you because I didn't want ruin your happiest day. But me and Daryl, we'd already weighed all the possibilities. He's my partner, you know. He's the one I talk to. I don't come to you anymore with all those things, not because I don't love you, but because life shifted. You know, you have Glenn." She jostles Maggie a little, until her sister's eyes come up to hers. "He's the one who I'll make all my choices with now, and sometimes that might leave you out of the loop." Maggie's eyes fill with more tears, and the pain in Beth's chest increases. "I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye, but we're back now."

Maggie shakes her head. "I'm not crying about that. I'm crying about how you're all grown up and even though I knew it, I tried hard not to notice. It was one thing, buying condoms in the grocery store, or taking you to get birth control; those are things big sisters should do, you know? But accepting that you're grown up like this...that's harder."

Beth can see their father in Maggie right at that moment, and she understands, at least a little bit. But then she tells Maggie about Shep and Jace, the whole thing, even the moment where she thinks she saw a glimpse of the future, Daryl with his two "sons." 

"Your sons," Maggie says softly. " _Yours_ , too. You ready to be a momma?"

"Are you?" Beth asks.

Maggie gives a watery laugh and blows out a "woo-eee" breath. "Maybe we can get there together. With Glenn and Daryl."

Beth says that's the best idea she's heard all day.

 

 

Shep settles in okay, but Daryl's still skeptical. He watches him covert-like, because he never wants the boy to feel scrutinized, but at the same time, he knows what it's like to be feral. He didn't just relax into it overnight, himself.

Of course, he was over 30 years old when all that happened. Shep's just thirteen, and in some ways, despite the dirty mouth he displays when he's frightened, is more like Beth than Daryl or Merle. He likes to laugh, especially if it involves doing something that makes Jace laugh, and Daryl never knew how contagious it could be until he heard a baby giggle uncontrollably.

He had never been happier in his life than during his time with Beth, but he's never laughed this much, ever, over the dumbest shit imaginable. 

Carol graciously moves out, finding a smaller place for herself, and Michonne finally takes the plunge with Rick. And all of a sudden, Daryl's living in a house with a woman who acts like a _wife_ , and two kids who act like _kids_ , and he wakes up sweating in the middle of the night because he has _an actual fucking family_ , like the kind that always showed up in pictures of "a normal life" and he wonders how the hell it happened to him.

"You okay, baby?" comes Beth's soft voice as he throws his legs over the edge of the bed, trying to catch his breath.

Her hand grazes the small of his bare back, and his tension starts to ebb a little. "Yeah," he mutters. "Just a dream."

He feels the bed shift behind him as she sits up, and light floods the room as she flicks the lamp on. Then she's winding herself around him, one arm looped over his shoulder while the other one slides under the opposite arm. She presses her lips to the soft skin behind his ear, rocking him bit, as she sings a line from a lullaby she's taken to singing to Jace.

"When're you gonna marry me?" he asks, surprising them both. He feels Beth's gasp at the same moment her arms tighten around him convulsively.

"Whenever you want," is her soft reply, though, because Beth is always the calm one.

He can feel her heart thumping wildly against his back, and it makes the blood start flowing hotly to all those places in his own body.

He scoots around, pulling her on to his lap. They don't sleep naked anymore, not when kids wake up in the middle night, and just come walking in at any time, but the nightshirt she's wearing slides up her thighs easily as she straddles him. A knowing smile plays on her lips as she rubs them over his. "We're gonna start something here, and then there will be a cryin' baby, you know."

Daryl realizes he'd probably been half-hard when he woke up so suddenly, but with her response to his question and then putting herself in his lap, he's totally ready to go. They haven't had much luck since they'd been back in D.C., all of two weeks now, but every time they'd tried to have some alone time, they had been interrupted one way or another.

Just two nights previous, he'd been about to shove himself inside her when the baby started crying and it startled him so much that he'd lost the mood entirely. Beth had laughed good-naturedly as she got up to go get Jace, patting his leg as she said, "No worries that we're gonna have three kids any time soon."

Now, he pulls back from her and puts a finger to her lips, shushing her. Then he nudges his hips up into hers a little and Beth reaches down to free him from the confines of the pajama pants she had made him start sleeping in. When he hisses in excitement as her hand surrounds his cock, she whispers, "Shhhhh."

Then she lifts herself up and comes right down on him, and he is a thousand times hotter instantly because she'd been in his bed with no panties on. He wants to ask her if she comes to bed in just the nightshirt every night, but he can't make a sound; not when her mouth opens over his and her tongue thrusts forward in rhythm with their lower bodies. He suppresses a groan in his chest, but doesn't last long at all, because he never does when Beth's on top anyway, plus, it's been a while. She clenches around him, arms, legs, and hot little pussy, everything all at once, and he's glad at least that he didn't leave her behind.

It's just peaceful between them for a while, quiet while Beth's head rests on his shoulder. Only a few minutes go by, though, before they hear to squeak of Jace from the next room over. Beth tenses slightly, and they wait to see if it will be a full-on cry. When he starts wailing, Beth climbs off Daryl, but gives him one long, lingering kiss. "Good thing we're good at quickies," she whispers before walking from the room.

When she comes back to their bed with a squiggly baby, he tucks them both in real close. Thinks about what a fucking lucky bastard he really is, and once Jace drifts back to sleep, so does Daryl, one thought traipsing through his head. 

It's funny how the things that are best for you can terrify the shit out of you, how in another life, he would have run from this so hard and fast. 

And now, he wouldn't have it any other way.

 

 

The day Beth Greene marries Daryl Dixon ("So, are you gonna stop calling me Greene once I become a Dixon?" she asked), when it's time for toasts and speeches and all that, Glenn and Maggie deliver beautifully. 

Maggie is seven months pregnant, and more lovely than Beth can ever remember her being, even though her entire life she has always thought her sister was the most gorgeous creature who ever lived. They all cry, but Beth is determined to be in control of her emotions, because she wants to give Daryl a special wedding gift.

Maggie helps with that, handing the microphone to Beth. A guy Daryl and Maggie work with plays the guitar, and he'd been invited to the wedding solely for this purpose.

Daryl is holding Jace, and Shep is sitting beside him (in a matching suit that makes him so adorable, Beth had cried when she saw him) at the table when Beth stands up and moves to the front of the room. "Hi, everyone," Beth says. "Thanks for being here for our special day." She clears her throat, surprised at how nervous she feels. She wasn't worried about marrying Daryl at all, and everything has been perfect all day, but this, this is the hard moment for her.

Maybe she has become more like Daryl, more private, less willing to put everything out there for everyone to see. But today, it's important to her to do just that.

She clears her throat again. "A lot of you know our story, how we got separated and then found each other again. What a lot of you might not know, is that some really hard things happened to me when I was separated from Daryl. And it was the memory of him, the knowledge I had of what I meant to him, and what he meant to me, that helped get me through that. And when I thought I'd never see him again, I wrote this song. About him, about us."

She looks around the room, but then focuses on her husband, who is already blinking rapidly, and she hasn't uttered a note of the song. She quickly looks away, clears her throat again, and says, "I always wanted to be a singer, and my husband says if that's what I want, I should do it. So I want to sing for you all today, but mostly I wanna sing for him. Because if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be so happy, I wouldn't have such a full life. And I'm not gonna look at him while I do it, so hopefully it will sound okay!"

A soft rumble of laughter rolls through the room as Beth turns to Mickey, the guitarist. She gives him a nod, and he strums the first notes out.

She sings like nobody's watching, but everyone is.

 

 

Daryl hangs his wedding photo, one of him, Beth, Shep, and Jace on the wall next to Beth's spoon. "Hey, Greene," he calls. "Is this straight?"

It's on the living room wall now that this is just the Dixon house. He'd moved it from their bedroom to the living room the same day Carol and Michonne moved out.

Beth pops in from the kitchen, Jace on her hip. "Yes," she says. "It's straight, but maybe put the picture up slightly, like, they don't have to be side by side like that. Shep!" she hollers.

"I'm right here, Mom," he says, and they turn to see him sitting on the sofa. He's reading a damn book, which Daryl thinks is a little weird, but is also a point of pride. His adopted son likes to read. _For fun._

"Help him hang that up," she says, pointing towards Daryl, as if it's obvious he would never be able to do it right.

Shep sets his book aside and walks over to where Daryl's standing. "What's that?" he asks, pointing at the spoon. 

So, Daryl tells him. It had been his hope and faith, his destruction and his misery. It had put him on a path that led to all these things, including Shep and Jace. 

"It's a Dixon family heirloom," he summarizes. 

"Can I hold it?" Shep asks.

Daryl takes it out of its glass case and hands it over. As the boy runs his fingers along its edges, examining it closely, Daryl imagines passing it down, the way a real heirloom would. "This is so cool," Shep says. He looks up at Daryl. "But Mom's right, the picture should go above it, you know? Instead of them being side by side, the picture should sit above it, like this." Shep puts the spoon back in its case and holds it up against the wall, right beneath the framed photo. "See? Looks better."

It's silly, but it chokes him up for some reason. All of it. His life. 

He doesn't even know anymore, how to contain all the happiness he feels. It just spills over everywhere, into everything.

As he nods his head at the boy, Daryl puts his hand on Shep's shoulder, squeezing it.

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BRING ON SEASON 5!


End file.
